20 April 2014

We decided to go to Chester Zoo on Good Friday, it was ridiculously busy (thank you fast track tickets!) and full of awfully behaved children but we still had a lovely time. The meerkats are always my favourite, I can watch them for hours on their little perches! It was beautiful weather, it was so sunny the rhino was intend in having a mud bath in the tiniest puddle of water. It was lovely to see lots of baby animals, just look at that tiny elephant! There are some penguin babies but we didn't get a chance to see them.

Hopefully blogging will resume shortly, I've been off sick from uni / placement for almost three months now. My life gets back to normal this week and with that hopefully a routine!

05 April 2014

As a child I had out of control hair, always in a plait and I hated washing my hair. I remember the tears and pain as my mum tried to untangle it. To this day I have no idea why she didn't just cut all my hair off. A few years ago I discovered Tangle Teezer, I thought they would never work on my tresses but how wrong I was! It really does work. They were developed by colourist Shaun Pulfrey and was even turned down by the Dragon's Den in 2007. Now they are a global brand and constantly growing,

I originally bought the Compact Styler, mainly because it was leopard print. Even the smaller version managed to untangle the dreaded knots in my hair. (Mine has since been dyed slightly red due to my permanently dyed red hair) In the Selfridge's Beauty Box a while ago the Aqua Splash version was included, perfect for the shower. It doesn't slip out of your hand, doesn't have any holes for water to build up going manky and horrible. The hollow middle allows it to be really light weight, no dropping it on your toes in the shower (other people do this, right?)

This past weekend there was a lovely discount code for ASOS so I caved and bought the full size beauty. It is perfect. Especially for only £6 ;) Somehow the lovely soft teeth manage to glide through my hair without hurting too much and untangling knots and snags from wearing my hair in a top knot for far too much of my life.

03 April 2014

Nail Varnish is one of my biggest obsessions and even though I try to avoid buying more sometimes they are so easy to pop into your basket when nipping into Boots for something or even the Supermarket. After a big clear out of the gloopy nail varnishes and the multiples as well as the shades I just never wear here we are. The wonderful A Thrifty Mrs posted about how she organised nail varnish with little stickers on top and I haven't looked back.

I ordered these circle stickers from Amazon which were perfect and painted each colour onto them. I found this wonderful box in Ikea, unfortunately can't find it on the website but it is very new and was only a few pounds. Perfect for my little collection of polishes along with nail files, top coats and other manicure bits and pieces!

I would love to have my nail varnish on display on little shelves but living in a small cottage with a man means I can't completely take over. This is compact enough to pop on top of my chest of drawers and is a lovely hot pink.

01 April 2014

I love eyebrows. I find myself watching eyebrows and staring at them when I should be concentrating on a tv shows plot. (Julianna Margulies, Alicia in The Good Wife? Perfect brows).

Only problem is I grew up when thin drawn on eyebrows were the best so I plucked my beautiful thick eyebrows into a state of none return. Now I struggle to grow them without them being super patchy. So my tools? I tint my brows every month or so, just to help darken the lighter hairs. I've never paid to have my brows tinted, the Colorsport 30 Day Mascara & Brow Dye in dark brown does the job however they have recently changed the formula and it is really hard to mix. Why change something that isn't broke!

I used to wax my brows but found I was taking too much hair off. Now I tweeze my brows, I am still trying to grow them out / get thicker brows but am not committed enough to leave them for weeks and weeks without being attacked with a tweezer. I have had them threaded a few times but they always leave me with super thin brows.

Depending on how heavy I want my brows I either use a pencil blended with a spoolie - I use MAC Brow Pencil in Strut (red undertones) or Spiked (for dark brown hairs) or MAC Eyeshadow in Espresso with an angled brush. I also love the ELF Brow Kit which has a pigmented wax and shadow to set, it is a bargain at £3.95.

The new Gimme Brow from Benefit has changed my routine, I thought it would be a complete gimmick but is actually really good. Some days I now just use gimme brow alone, just with some help from an eye brow pencil to perfectly define this shape. The tiny brush helps catch every eyebrow hair creating dark thick hair where there is none. My only problem is the tiny amount of product you get for the price, but am going to post a full review of this with before / after photos once I have tidied up my very neglected brows. They are not close up ready at the minute.